


What the F***, Mulder?

by Defnotmeyo



Category: The X-Files
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-02
Updated: 2017-10-02
Packaged: 2019-01-08 01:09:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12244176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Defnotmeyo/pseuds/Defnotmeyo
Summary: Five times Scully yelled at him.  And one time he yelled back.





	What the F***, Mulder?

They’ve been on exactly two cases together and yet, she’s been practically naked in front of him, he’s told her his life story, and she’s managed to save him from certain death in a military installation. Things one does when they’ve just met, right?

Dana Scully can’t quite identify what makes Mulder so follow-able and her innate curiosity has only pushed her to follow him further. He’s a goofball a majority of the time. A fifteen-year-old in a grown man’s suit (barely though, his clothes hang off him), half of his jokes are inappropriate for the work place and the other half of the time, he’s sitting across her in diners across the city shooting paper off the ends of straws at her. 

Half the time, he reminds her of her older brother, Bill. But she doesn’t spend the other half of her time with Bill staring at his ass.

So here she is, in Nowhere, South Carolina, for no reason other than there was a report of a skunkape terrorizing the local poodle population. It is the most ridiculous case he’s brought her along on, thus far, and instead of being pestered, she is charmed. 

And beyond charmed, more than a little attracted.

Fox Mulder is a fucking fox. She’s spent hours talking around this fact with her best friend, Ellen. 

“So… is he hot?” “He’s… he cute.” “So… he’s hot.” “I mean…” a chuffed laugh, “I’m not dropping my panties for him,” she already kinda has, “but, if you were single I’d set you up.” “So… he’s hot.” “Ellen… We work together.” “Said the woman who dated Jack.” 

That was the end of that conversation.

And that is the end of her thinking of that conversation as she sits on the edge of the pool in the stifling southern heat, arguing with Mulder as he paddles around in the water.

“Did you see those tracks, Scully? That cannot be faked.” Backstroke now.

God damn he has a beautiful body. Thank god he’s in trunks and not the fabled speedo. 

“I think it’s a waste of time and resources, actually, Mulder.” Good. She sounds like an adult real FBI agent.

“Yeah, yeah. We’ll head back tomorrow if nothing turns up.” He spits out a mouthful of pool water and is now treading two feet from her, his hair matted down, green-hazel eyes bright and staring at her like he wants to pull her pigtails… if she had them.

Dana is a little sister, and she’s wary. “We should go back tonight. This case isn’t worth the cost of this motel.”

There it is, and she’s quickly aware he’s not her older brother, because Mulder is much, much faster than Bill. So fast, in fact, his goal is accomplished. He’s got his hand around her wrist, and her in the pool, before she can say ‘don’t you dare!’ 

He’s laughing at her as she sputters up, and he is close. So close.

“What the fuck, Mulder! I’m in a suit! You don’t even know if I can swim! What the… what the fuck!”

He’s still laughing, treading, his hands near her waist. “What? It’s funny. It’s hot. Your dad’s a Navy Captain. I assumed he taught you to swim. Besides. I’m right here. If you couldn’t, I would have had you.”

She pushes off his chest. And her annoyance, in the southern heat, fades to back to charm. “God dammit, Mulder.” 

The next day, she will forget to mention to Ellen that her partner pulled her into the pool.  
—–  
They sit back from the escalator, and he smells like ozone, but only because he’s covered in bile. 

They’re both breathless. The huffing continues, soundless minutes as he tries to process almost dying… again… and Scully tries to process the fact she’s very glad she’s been doing pull-ups lately, because she never could have hauled his ass out of that access tunnel.

“Mulder…” she finally breaks the silence. Just his name. What else can she say? “Mulder…”

He shakes his head, and tries not to dwell on the fact that Eugene Tooms is the second person he’s ever killed. 

“What the fuck, Mulder?”

He’s killed. Twice now. And he can’t help but feel like they’re headed down a path that will lead to more.

His elbow slips and he lands flat on his back, his head lightly cracking on the ground.

“Jesus, Mulder!” She’s over him, straddling his hips and working the buttons on his shirt.

He pushes her hand off. “I’m alright, Scully… Just give me a minute.”

They stay that way, both gasping, him flat on his back and her astride his hips, until the red and blue lights reflect off the interior of the walls.  
—–  
She knows it’s him, just by his knock. His insistent, persistent knock. He needs to go the hell away, is what he needs to do.

In her darkest cancer days, she never felt the way she does at this moment. Her cancer days were full of aching, bone deep. Regret. 

She’d never been to Times Square for the New Year. She’d never been to any square to see a Christmas tree lit. She’d never been married – and she doesn’t particularly care if she is, but oh man, she really wanted that for her mom – and she’d never been on that date when one knows, oh God… he’s gonna propose.

Tonight… this pain and this anger… this is not cancer days. She is seething. A mother who can’t understand, a sister-in-law who’s too dense to be in the same room, and a brother who thinks a barren woman should still be barefoot and pregnant. 

And a partner. A partner who is definitely not her brother. A partner who never bothered to tell said woman she was barren.

So, fucking forgive her, Dana thinks, when she doesn’t just open the God damned door for him. The empty Cabernet on her coffee table makes her forget. He has a key.

“What are you doing here, Mulder?”

“I uh…” he shuffles and she does not make room for him on her sofa. “I…” she doesn’t see him roll his eyes heavenward, praying for something to say. “Are you coming back to work?” His prayers, apparently, went unanswered.

If she were prone to outburst, the bottle of Cab would be thrown and smashed somewhere near his head.

“Am I… coming back to work?” 

There’s a tense silence.

“Yes, Mulder. Yes, I’m coming back to work. If you wouldn’t mind just giving me a couple of damn days-”

“Scully…”

“A couple of days, Mulder! And you know what…” she stands now and turns on him. “You lied to me!”

“Scully-”

“No, Mulder. No. You lied. Omission is not an excuse, here.”

“Scully, I-”

“Yes, yes I’m fucking coming back to work.” The fight has left her and she slumps back on the couch. “Yes, Mulder, I’m coming back to work.

He shuffles, his hands opening and closing three, four times. “I um… Scully. I…. I can’t do this without you.”

She sighs and drops her head in her hands. “What the fuck, Mulder?”

He shuffles again. 

“Mulder, go home.”

He obeys.  
—–  
He opens his present, first.

“Godzilla 1985? This is awesome!” He doesn’t think. He just tugs her back on his couch, arm slung around her. “You realize the rules of Christmas Eve mandate we watch this immediately.”

“I think it’s Christmas Day, Mulder.”

He tugs her tighter. He does not care she hasn’t opened her gift. For the first time since… hell… maybe since Phoebe… he can feel himself traipsing across ‘something more,’ with someone. 

This is the first winter he’s stopped to appreciate the final fall of the leaves and the snow that blankets D.C. 

It’s the first winter the oppressive silence of snow hasn’t buried him. 

It’s the first winter he’s allowed himself to picture cumming all over her face.

And he wants to. Jeeeeeeeeeesus he wants to. He wants to do everything with her, for her.

Fox Mulder. For lack of a better term. Is horny. And in love. And damn is that a painful combination.

He feels a little bad, a little like a convict, because he’s put his hands on her as much as she will let him in the past few weeks. At this point, she’s gotta fucking know, right?

Still. He’s nervous. Particularly nervous as she tears open her present.

It’s his poster.

I Want To Believe.

“Mulder…”

Now he’s uncomfortable. “I uh… You’ve never stood against me, Scully. I know you don’t always buy into my crazy, but… you’ve never been mean to me and… and… I gotta think on some level, sometimes, you want to prove me right.”

Oooooooooooooh fuck. He’s just jumped out of the plane with no parachute. 

She’s back to his chest. And she smiles. Turns over and he cannot breathe. “I’ve never wanted to prove you wrong, Mulder.” She noses his collar bone and he has developed paralysis. “I’ve only wanted to prove you.”

She pushes up off his pectorals and he can’t follow her. He’s stunned stone cold into his couch. He’s glued.

She tosses over her head at the door. “Still… the next time we’re in a haunted house… how ‘bout you not shoot me. What the fuck, Mulder?”

The door closes and he doesn’t move until the sun cracks through his window shade.  
—–  
They’ve stayed in a thousand hotels. Across a thousand county lines. 

She’s done. She said it. She promised she would leave and she has.

She walked out the door. And he will, he swears, make good on that auto-erotic promise Clyde made, if she doesn’t come back.

She is the last thing. The only thing he has left to hold on to. And he doesn’t care that he’s pissed at her. Doesn’t care that their son is in some stranger’s hands.

Fox Mulder. Does. Not. Care. 

There are two good things in his life and their names are Dana Scully and Johnny Walker Blue. And he can afford them both.

Apparently, affluence does not buy eternal love.

So when she comes home, their new home, and the door slams shut behind her, he doesn’t think. He says.

“I love you.”

“You love that office.”

“I can’t be anyone else, Scully.”

“And I can’t live in an empty house, Mulder. My mother does. I’m not as strong.”

“You are.”

“You’re not promising me to change. You’re asking me to endure. What the fuck, Mulder, does this not mean anything to you, anymore?”

“It… it’s everything.”

“Then act like it.”

He doesn’t. And she moves out.  
—–  
One day, it’s over. 

He never thought he’d see it, but he’s oh-so-glad he lived until he did.

Will doesn’t live with them. He never will. But William knows who they are. He calls, twice a week. He’s in grad school. And his blood helped save the world. 

Normal child things.

They spent years trying to work things out but, it turns out, all they needed was for the aliens to go away.

He benches and presses three times a week. She’s been trying to get him to squat.

“Bwak, bwak, Mulder,” she teases him at the farmer’s market.

He gets down on one knee and Scully is torn between slapping him and running away screaming as a crowd gathers.

“I don’t want to get married because you said yes. I wanna get married because it’s really all that’s left. And if you say Fine or Yes or No and don’t elaborate, Dana, that’s okay. But I need to ask.”

She never would have, in a million years thought. “Um…”

Hours later, back at the house, Daggoo busts in. 

“Mulder, I know you’re allergic, but if we’re moving back in it’s a package deal.”

Daggoo sniffs once.

Mulder doesn’t care. She’s back.

Daggoo sniffs twice.

He pisses on the couch.

“What the fuck, Scully!”

“Mulder?”

He’s already scrubbing. “Yeah?” he’s distracted.

“Yes.”


End file.
